HD&D: Classes and Multiclassing

We should probably have got around to discussing this long before now. Although various posts on this blog have all mentioned character classes and alluded to mechanics for multiclassing, nothing has been properly set down in black and white. I aim to change that today, because it’s not as cut and dried as I might have hoped. I believe that the system I have come up with is robust, and should survive contact with cunning players. It offers the multiclassing flexibility of third edition, but with more checks and balances so multi-classed characters are not significantly more (or less) powerful than their single class companions. Let’s get started.

Character Progression

A character’s progression in HD&D works far more like the fourth edition game than third. Whereas in third edition all classes gained unique abilities at different levels, and may have enjoyed different base attack bonuses, saving throws or armour and weapon proficiency, in HD&D the progression is completely standardised. Nowhere is this better evidenced than the progression table below: 

Level	Ability Scores	Features	Talents Known	Feats Known	Max Skill Ranks
1st	see race	Gain 3 talents; gain 1 feat	3	1	1
2nd	—	Gain 1 feat	3	2	1
3rd	—	Gain 1 talent	4	2	2
4th	+1 to two	Gain 1 feat	4	3	2
5th	—	Gain 1 talent	5	3	3
6th	—	Gain 1 feat	5	4	3
7th	—	Gain 1 talent	6	4	4
8th	+1 to two	Gain 1 feat	6	5	4
9th	–	Gain 1 talent	7	5	5
10th	–	Gain 1 feat	7	6	5
11th	+1 to all	Gain 3 talents; gain 1 feat	10	7	6
12th	—	Gain 1 feat	10	8	6
13th	—	Gain 1 talent	11	8	7
14th	+1 to two	Gain 1 feat	11	9	7
15th	—	Gain 1 talent	12	9	8
16th	—	Gain 1 feat	12	10	8
17th	—	Gain 1 talent	13	10	9
18th	+1 to two	Gain 1 feat	13	11	9
19th	–	Gain 1 talent	14	11	10
20th	–	Gain 1 feat	14	12	10
21st	+1 to all	Gain 3 talents; gain 1 feat	17	13	11
22nd	—	Gain 1 feat	17	14	11
23rd	—	Gain 1 talent	18	14	12
24th	+1 to two	Gain 1 feat	18	15	12
25th	—	Gain 1 talent	19	15	13
26th	—	Gain 1 feat	19	16	13
27th	—	Gain 1 talent	20	16	14
28th	+1 to two	Gain 1 feat	20	17	14
29th	–	Gain 1 talent	21	17	15
30th	–	Gain 1 feat	21	18	15

 So all classes of a given level will have the same number of feats, the same number of talents (our new name for class abilities) and the same maximum ranks in any skill. Because weapon proficiencies have been folded into the main skills system there is no need for a base attack bonus. A wizard could potentially have the same ranks in a weapon skill as a fighter. Of course, chances are the fighter has a broader chioce of weapons, as well as feats and talents that make him better than any wizard swordsman. In addition to the information in the table above, all characters receive the following standardised abilities at first level:

Racial Benefits: All races provide +2 to two ability scores, +2 to two skills, +1 to one defence and two racial traits. 

Defence Bonus: All classes gain a +2 to their defences at first level. This can be applied as the player sees fit, so +2 to one defence or +1 to two defences. And yes it can stack with the racial bonus, so you could end up with +3 to one defence and +0 to the other two if you wanted.

Favoured Skills: All classes choose sixteen class skills from a list of Favoured Skills. The contents of this list is dependent on your class. To carry on with the comparison between fighters and wizards: all the weapon skills would be on a fighter’s list of Favoured Skills, but only the staff, the dagger and the crossbow is on the wizard’s list. As mentioned in the last post, class skills cost less skill points to advance than other skills. However, the maximum ranks in either is the same.

Hit Points: All characters start with hit points equal to their Constitution score (not Con Modifier), and gain 4 additional hit points each level. Every time you select a talent you either get +0, +2 or +4 extra hit points depending on whether the talent has a scholarly, general or martial bent. This rule seeks to give fighters more hit points than wizards, but notice how the acquisition of additional hit points is dependent on your talent selection, and not your level, class or classes.

Level Modifier: In fourth edition you received a +1 level modifier to initiative, skills, defences, attacks and ability checks at every even level. HD&D also has a level modifier, although its application isn’t anywhere near as broad. In HD&D all your Defences and Saving Throws improve by +1 at every odd numbered level. Starting at level one. So a starting character has a base of 10 in all his defences. He gets +1 to that at level one, so a first level character actually starts with 11 in all his defences before applying the relevent ability modifier and other defence bonuses.

All of the above seek to make it very hard to ‘optimise’ a character by multiclassing. You can no longer multiclass to get additional skill points or hit points; or a better base attack bonus or saving throws. All these things are the same for all characters. The only way to optimise your character is through your selection of skills, feats and talents.

Building a Character

At the beginning of character generation all characters are pretty similar. By the end, they will be very different. One of the first steps in character generation is to select you race and your class. There is some synergy between certain races and certain classes. By and large this plays to the racial stereotype: elves make good archers and wizards; dwarves make good fighters and so on. Humans are adaptable and a good choice for any class. This situation has existed in every edition of Dungeons and Dragons, but HD&D doesn’t take it to the same insane degree as fourth edition did. You’ll have to trust me on that for the moment.

At first level you need to select three talents and one feat. These are in addition to any abilities you might have gained from your racial traits (humans get a bouns feat at first level, just as they have in previous editions). You may select any feat or talent for which you qualify. This normally means any feat or talent associated with your Class or your Race. So a Half-Orc druid selects from a pool of half-orc feats and talents, and druid feats and talents. In addition to class and race specific feats and talents, there are also “General” feats and talents that can be selected by any race or any class. These are also available for starting characters. Inevitably, there are a lot more general feats than general talents.

Note that feats and talents may have further prerequisites in addition to a specific race or a specific class. Further prerequisites for feats and talents are usually your character level, and a requirement that you have already selected certain other feats or talents. For example, the Triple Attack talent requires the character to be either a Fighter, Ranger or Paladin, to be 21st level and to already have the Double Attack talent. Sometimes other prerequisites (such as having a certain skill as a Class Skill) may also be required.

All the abilities that were considered class abilities in previous editions of the game are now Talents. The mantra of HD&D is that no-one gets anything for free. So a fighter needs to select the right talent to give him Armour Proficiency, the wizard has to select the right talent to be able to cast spells. A monk without the Martial Arts talent is just a bald bloke in an orange dress. In order for the system to work, and in order for multiclassing to work, no class can gain any advantage in the game that is not obtained either through a talent or through a feat.

HD&D characters are therefore entirely modular. You start with a blank canvas and a bucket-full of options. You can select what you want from where you want with few limitations, because the game is designed to allow you to create exactly the character you want to play. That’s why we have a point-buy system for stats instead of rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest die. This freedom of choice is carried over into the rules for Multiclassing.

Multi-classing

In genereal the problem with multi-classing is that it has a habit of breaking the game. Powers and abilities that looked perfectly sane and reasonable for one class, are suddenly transformed into insanely powerful and world-destroying when combined with the abilities of another class. That was certainly true in third edition and, to some extent, I think this will continue to be true in HD&D. Now things are never going get as bad in HD&D as they did in third edition: the fact that you don’t get any extra hit points, skill points, saving throw bonuses or base attack bonuses from prudent multiclassing, goes a very long way to limiting the damage. But I think it’s likely that certain feat and talent combinations from different classes may be unbalancing. I think we’ll have to unpick those on a case-by-case basis when we find them. Hopefully there won’t be too many.

As in fourth edition, you multi-class in HD&D by choosing a special Multi-Class Feat. All multiclass feats have an ability-score based prerequisite. You must have a 13 or more in the Ability Score most associated with the new class in order to take the feat (e.g. Str for a fighter, Dex for rogue and so on). If you can select the feat, it provides you with two benefits. Firstly it allows you to add a prescribed skill from your second class’s list of Favoured Skills to your own list of Class Skills. For example, the Wizard multiclass feat lets you add Spellcraft to your list of class skills. If you already have Spellcraft then you can choose any other skill from the wizard’s list of Favoured skills instead. Secondly, the multiclass feat allows you to select feats and talents as if you were a member of the new class. It doesn’t give you any extra feats or talents – you still have to ‘pay’ for those separately – but it broadens your options.

Note that even though you have added an additional skill to your list of Class Skills, you don’t get any more skill points. A character with one multi-class feat will have seventeen class skills, but still get sixteen skill points at every odd numbered level. You can obtain additional skill points with special feats, or you may decide that you have enough skill points as it is. You are not obliged to concentate on all your class skills, indeed, the rules encourage you not to.

Because feats are gained at even levels and talents are gained at odd levels, it probably takes two levels to fully exploit your choice. So you choose your wizard multiclass feat at one level and gain the Spellcraft skill, then at the next level you can chooe your first Wizard talent. The exception to this are levels 1, 11 and 21 where you gain talents and a feat at the same level. Although not explicit in HD&D, these are levels when the game tends to change up a gear. They generally equate to the Heroic, Paragon and Epic tiers of the fourth edition game. Except that in HD&D “Epic” has the same undetones as it did in third edition. Twentieth level will be the upper end of advancement for most characters. So what happens if you multiclass at level one?

You can choose a multiclass feat at first level if you like. Thanks to their racial traits, Humans and Half-elves can choose two. However, there is a special order in which you apply the effects of multiclass feats to your character. First of all, you select a character class as normal. This is your primary class. You select your sixteen class skills from the list of Favoured Skills of your primary class, and only your primary class. Only when you have done that, do you select a multiclass feat and gain another skill from your second class. Basically, multiclassing at first level doesn’t give you any game advantage. You aren’t able to pick and choose class skills from two lists of Favoured Skills or anything silly like that.

There is no limit to the number of multi-class feats you can gain, except for your ability scores and your number of available feats. There is no penalty for “uneven” multiclassing as there was in third edition. In you have the right multiclass feat, and as long as you meet any other prerequisites, all the talents and feats of the chosen class are open to you. Does this take away from single class characters? Probably not. Single-classed characters are always going to be better in their chosen field than multiclassers because they will have more class talents than a character that is spreading its focus more widely. I don’t think the game owes anything to players who just stick at one class. Multiclassing shouldn’t be less attractive or more attractive an option. It should just be an option.

Multi-racing

In addition to multi-class feats, there are also Multi-Race Feats. So who qualifies for them? Generally half-breed races have the option to select a multi-race feat that gives them an extra racial trait, and allows them access to the talents and feats of one of their parent races. For example, a half-orc is a race in its own right. A half-orc has its own racial traits, and its own half-orc specific feats and half-orc specific talents. However, the half-orc is also a half race. Chances are one of the parents was human and one was orc. Therefore the half-orc can (if the player wants) take a either the Human multirace feat, or the Orc multirace feat – or even both, if the player so desires.

A multi-race feat gives you access to the one of the racial traits of the parent race. So the half-orc could select the Human multirace feat and gain the Human Endeavour racial trait (that gives him one additional class skill, and +1 skill point per level). It also allows the half-orc to select any racial feat or talent of that race. Some races, such as the Genbassi, are able to select the multi-race feat for any race, but usually a race (such as the half-orc) will have a choice of two.

This is also the way HD&D handles things such as exotic bloodlines. If you have an otherwise human sorcerer, but you want to play up his draconic bloodline, the GM may allow you to take a multi-race feat and gain access to a draconic benefit, and the ability to select draconic feats and talents. Obviously, I haven’t worked out those rules yet but you see the principle.

Prestige Classes and Paragon Paths

In third edition, you could move on from the regular classes and graduate into one of the game’s prestige classes. All of these classes had special (and sometimes very complicated) prerequisites; and my god: there were a lot of prestige classes. All this encouraged characters to play to the prestige class. Rather than consider their character in the here and now, they were looking to the future, trying to optimise their character and make sure that they qualified for the prestige class of their dreams. Then, in fourth edition this was thrown out of the window and all (okay, almost all) characters were forced to choose a Paragon Path at 11th level. No thought or planning was needed here because Paragon Paths had few prerequisites beyond being a certain race or class.

So, what are we going to do in HD&D? Well, I like the idea of Prestige Classes, but I think that they should be special. If you have 1000 different options, then they’re really not very special are they? It is also important that Prestige Classes are not any more powerful than regular classes. They should simply do different things, not better things. The choice to enter a prestige class should be based on the story of your character, not on any desire to gain a mechanical advantage over the other players. And probably most importantly:

PRESTIGE CLASSES SHOULD NOT BE GENERIC!! 

Almost all of the Prestige Classes published in third edition (or the paragon paths published in fourth edition) do not need to exist. The powers and abilities of classes such as the Loremaster, the Archmage, the Assassin, the Cavalier, the Drunken Master and so on don’t need to be classes in their own right. They can just become options for the standard classes. Any paladin should have access to the abilities of the Cavalier class without having to bend over backwards to make the prerequisites. Likewise, racial based classes such as the Elemental Tempest (for the genasi) or the Warforged Juggernaut (for the warforged) might as well be converted into a bunch of racial talents that simply aren’t available until higher levels.

Prestige Classes in HD&D take the form of a highly specialised group of talents and feats (usually no more than three talents, and six feats). These abilities are linked in theme, and almost certainly tied to a particular tutor, instititution, group or school. The demon-hunting Knights of the Chalice from the Complete Warrior is a good example of what a Prestige Class should be. All prestige classes should be intrinsic to the campaign setting. They should not exist without reason or tether to Iourn, or the Realms or where-ever the game takes place. As you can appreciate, there are going to be significantly less prestige classes than before. Many players will never bother to consider them as options for their character: which is fine. They should be uncommon.

Taking a leaf out of 4e, the requirements for entering a prestige class are going to be much easier in HD&D than they were in third edition. You don’t need a multi-class feat to enter a prestige class. What you must do is meet three prerequisites: 1) A certain class or race; 2) a certain experience level; 3) you must complete a role-playing based prerequisite in game: this could be a special service, a quest or anything else the GM can devise. On rare occassion there may be additional prerequisites, but it is my hope that they would be few and far between.

As a note, fourth edition’s Epic Destinies are just plain silly. Any elements from them that I want to save (and there are very few) can be folded into the talents and feats of specific races, classes or prestige classes.

Level Dependent Benefits

In fourth edition you never see the phrase the phrase: “inflicts x damage per caster level” or “lasts x rounds per caster level”. This is because 4e has completely divorced a character’s level from his intrinsic proficiency in an individual character class. For example, in fourth edition a Fighter might take the Wizard multiclass feat. He might take further multiclass feats and decide to use the paragon-mulitclassing option to concentrate in the Wizard class instead of taking a fighter-based paragon path. At twentieth level such a character would look like this:

Fighter Powers: 1 at-will, 3 encounters, 3 dailies, 4 utilities
Wizard Powers: 1 at-will, 2 encounters, 2 dailies, 2 utilities

These powers have been gained at various levels, and are the product of retraining. Whereas in third edition this character might be described as a Fighter 12/Wizard 8, that’s just not possible in fourth edition. Whichever way you slice it, this character is a Level 20 Fighter/Wizard, just in the same way a Fighter who dabbles in multiclassing and gains no wizard powers at all, is a Level 20 Fighter/Wizard. There’s no way to tease apart your level of skill in each individual class.

HD&D has the same problem. As we have seen, HD&D characters are modular. Their class abilities are built from a selection of talents. The multiclassing system in HD&D is much freer than in 4e, but still follows much the same rules. You choose a multiclass feat to gain access to the talents (and feats) of another class. As with 4e this means that you cannot tell the level of proficiency in an individual class.

Let’s take that perennial multiclasser Elias Raithbourne as an example. In third edition Elias is 14th level. He is a Fighter 2, Sorcerer 1, Rogue 2, Paladin 5, Pious Templar 4. But how would that translate to HD&D?

Well at 14th level Elias has eleven talents. Assuming Marc still wants access to all these classes, and is willing to spend the required feats, then he can select talents from any these classes. He decides to take Spellcasting Level One and Summon Familiar (from the sorcerer), Evasion (from the rogue), Two-Handed Master (from the Fighter), Double Attack (from the Fighter), Smite (from the Paladin), Lay on Hands (from the Paladin), Summon Warhorse (from the Paladin), Spellcasting Level 1 (from the Paladin), Spellcasting Level 2 (from the Paladin), and for the eleventh talent he decides to choose something related to his blue dragon bloodline.

So what level is Elias in all these classes? Who knows? He can’t be described as anything other than a Level 14 Sorcerer/Fighter/Rogue/Paladin/Templar. So does that really matter? Unfortunately, I think it does.

There are a number of spells, talents and even feats that contain level dependent benefits. The Fireball inflicts 1d6 damage per level to a maximum of 10d6. The Monk’s slow-fall ability lets you drop an increasing distance without taking any falling damage. To what do we peg these level dependent benefits?

Do we just say that they relate to your overall class level? That would be easiest but would it be fair? Say Elias multiclassed into Monk at 14th level and picked up the Slow Fall talent at 15th level. Suddenly Elias is better at slow-falling that Raza (who has been a monk from level one) because Raza is still only 14th level.

There’s a disparity here, certainly. But it should also be noted that there is a mechanical benefit from doing it this way. If you select a talent and don’t get the full benefit of your level from it, then the usefulness of the talent is diminished and may even be considered worthless. If getting Slow Fall will only allow Elias to drop safely 30 feet, while Raza can use it to drop 150 feet then what’s the point in multiclassing at all?

This was a big problem in third edition. Multiclassing had the potential to create under-powered (or rather oddly-powered) characters because many low-level abilities just aren’t that useful at higher levels. Do we still consider this a problem in HD&D, or do we said say that it’s a feature? The system simply shouldn’t encourage you to pick up every class in the game? Personally, I think that multiclass characters should be just as powerful as single class characters regardless of the number of classes they have multiclassed into. They shouldn’t be more powerful, but they shouldn’t be penalised for multi-classing. I suspect some of you might feel differently.

For those of you who do feel differently, I will ask you this:

If we don’t peg level-dependent benefits to a character’s level, then what we do we peg it to? As I have pointed out, there is no conception of individual levels in a multiclass character’s bundle of classes. If Slow Fall doesn’t improve by(e.g.) 10 feet per level, then how does it improve? Do we peg it to talents? Does the text of Slow Fall read something like this: “For every additional Monk Talent you have beyond this one you can Slow Fall an additional 20 feet”?

Now that might work, but I have two reservations. Firstly, it’s difficult to keep track of. If all level-dependent benefits run off you level and you know you’re level 14 then its pretty easy to work out what you can do on the fly. If you have to count up your talents every time you jump out of a window (and you just know that some players will do that) then the game will start to grind. Secondly, although this mechanic works fairly well for something as simple as Slow Fall, it doesn’t work as well for spells.

But then spells are a different animal. Each individual level of spells is a different talent. You can’t get Spellcasting Level Two, unless you have already selected Spellcasting Level One. So in one respect, it’s self regulating. You can’t just choose to get hold of a fireball at 9th level if you’ve not had previous spellcasting experience. Low level spells usually aren’t quite as devastating.

In the above example Elias is able to cast 1st level sorcerer spells. He can’t cast anything higher than that, but he’s mastered 1st level incantations. However, he’s Level 14 so his caster  level is also 14. This means that when he casts magic missile he casts it as a 14th level caster. The range and number of missiles increase accordingly. Is this right and proper? What if Elias chose not to pick up that Spellcasting talent until level 13? He goes from not knowing anything about magic at all, to able to cast magic missiles as a 13th level caster. Is this too much?

We need to decide how these level dependent benefits work, and we need to decide pretty soon. I encourage debate on this topic. I am a little torn as to which way to go. But unless someone comes up with a good alternative, I am inclined to go for the easiest and most mechanically consistant solution – i.e. level dependent benefits simply run off your character’s level. So if you feel strongly, convince me otherwise.